Two Sorts of Claims about " Logical Form " *

The notion of logical form broadly construed has been central to the enterprise of analytic philosophy. Indeed, much of what we call analytic philosophy can be understood as something like the attempt to " characterize the logical forms " of various classes of sentences. Thus metaethical investigations into the nature of moral goodness can be thought of as attempts to " characterize the logical form " of sentences such as 'x is morally good'; epistemological investigations into the nature of knowledge can be thought of as attempts to " characterize the logical forms " of sentences such as 'A knows that P', and so on. However, at least when viewed from a certain perspective, there are two quite different sorts of philosophical claims that one might intend in attempting to " characterize the logical form " of a given class of sentences. Unfortunately, these two sorts of claims have not always been carefully distinguished. And they should be carefully distinguished, not only for the sake of conceptual clarity, but because a given philosophical claim will have different implications depending on which of the two sorts of claims it is taken to be. Hence, when taken one way a given philosophical claim will be subject to objections that it is not subject to when taken the other way; and when taken one way a given philosophical claim will be able to do work in a larger philosophical theory that it could not do when taken the other way. Though I have focused thus far on claims about logical form, similar remarks apply to claims to the effect that one is providing a philosophical " analysis " or " account " of e.g. knowledge or moral goodness. Here too, such claims can be interpreted in two importantly different ways.